Louisa road closure info affects emergency response

By Jim Rudisill for The Hawk Eye

Wednesday

Mar 13, 2019 at 1:01 AM

WAPELLO — Louisa County supervisor Brad Quigley assured other county officials during the board of supervisors’ meeting Tuesday he would begin discussions with emergency dispatchers and area fire chiefs to resolve recent communication breakdowns involving road and bridge closures.

“We wanted to touch base on how we are handling bridge and road closures,” Shutt started off this week’s update.

Shutt said under the current procedures, when a bridge or road is closed, signs are set out and then either he or Bell contacts the dispatchers at the Louisa County Sheriff’s Office and alerts them to the closures.

He also said a posting is placed on the secondary roads’ Facebook page.

However, there have been recent breakdowns in the line of communication, which have forced firefighters and other emergency teams responding to calls to backtrack because roads they had been told were open were still closed.

“It happened three weeks ago when I called in and then (Steve) called in Sunday and reiterated it yesterday and there have been a couple of times where it hasn’t been passed along,” Shutt reported.

According to Bell and Shutt, one incident involved a fire truck responding to a call and another time an ambulance was blocked and needed to use an alternate route.

Quigley, chairman of the board of supervisors who also serves on Wapello Fire and Rescue, said under the current dispatching system, firefighters can use the I Am Responding app on their smart phones, which provides the firefighters with the best route to get to a reported incident.

“I think I Am Responding can redirect (because of detours), so I’m wondering if it’s not getting communicated to I Am Responding? It doesn’t sound like it is,” he suggested.

Bell, however, suggested the problem was not related to the app.

“It’s not even getting communicated to the next dispatcher,” he replied.

Bell said that was apparent because Shutt had received an irate call later on Monday from a dispatcher complaining because there was no road closure on 115th Street. That was the road Bell said he had initially reported on Sunday as being closed and then repeated the closure on Monday.

“What do you recommend?” Quigley asked the road department staff.

“I don’t know if we can do much more than call in and (report) it,” Shutt answered, adding a group discussion with everyone in the same room or perhaps a strong message from the supervisors might help.

Quigley agreed some action needed to be taken.

“We just about lost a truck, and that’s a couple hundred thousand dollars,” Quigley acknowledged about the latest incident.

“That’s bad if it happens, but it wouldn’t have been our fault because we signed it and called it in,” Shutt said.

“I’ll talk to dispatch and then I’ll talk to the chiefs and get their perspective and if we need to set up a meeting, I’ll tell,” Quigley said.

Extras

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
The Hawk Eye Newspaper ~ 800 South Main Street, PO Box 10, Burlington, IA 52601-0010 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service